Why Not I ?

by

C.
W. Leadbeater

From The Theosophist, Oct. 1913

1.Men join the Theosophical Society for various reasons; some because they
sympathise with its objects, some because they think they can learn something
from it, some because they meant to help the work it is doing. Whatever be their
reasons, when they have grasped the principle of evolution, they are usual fired
with enthusiasm for it. Seeing the possibility and the desirability of progress,
they begin to be anxious to attain it; hearing how sadly the world needs
helping, they wish to enroll themselves in the noble army of martyrs who devote
themselves to that stupendous but somewhat thankless task  thankless, because
the world still stones its prophets, and the discomfort of the process is but
little mitigated by the prospect that a wiser posterity will presently raise
monuments to them. When members have thus decided to hasten the process of their
evolution, they enquire as to methods, teachers, helpers, and they soon hear
from older students of the existence of the Brotherhood of Adepts, and of the
fact that some of these Great Ones occasionally admit apprentices and instruct
them in the work which has to be done. The aspirant feels that this is exactly
what he would like, and he wishes to offer himself at once for such a position.
But the older student explains to him that the offer must come from the other
side  that all he can do is to make himself fit for such a post, and wait until
the Master calls him.

2.When he further enquires as to the way in which he can make himself fit
to be chosen, he is told that there is no mystery as to the qualifications
required. They have been elaborately described in the sacred books of the
ancients, they may be found in the teaching of every religion, and they are
worked out minutely in modern Theosophical literature. It is easy to learn about
them, but difficult to acquire them, and their practice seems out of touch with
much that we find prominent in the life of the present day. History assures us
that the thing has been done, but closer examination shows us that it has never
been done exactly under existing conditions. Whenever in older times a man set
himself definitely to live the higher life, he began by retiring to a cave or a
habitation far removed from the world of men. So long as he remained among his
fellows he was supposed to be living the life of the householder, who might be,
and ought to be, a thoroughly good and honest man, but was engaged in doing the
work of the world on the physical plane and not aiming specially at occult
development. He participated in that higher life by making it possible for
others, by providing for the needs of those who were wholly devoting themselves
to it.

3.Now the hermit who lives in a cave or the monk who confines himself to
his cell no doubt resigns what are commonly called the pleasures of the world,
but he provides himself with admirably appropriate conditions for the work which
he is trying to do. He sees very little of his fellow-creatures; he has cast
aside all responsibilities; he has nothing to worry or trouble him, nothing to
make him angry. Such a life is possible only for men of a certain temperament;
but for them it is ideal in its freedom. That, however, is not at all the method
of development recommended to the Theosophical student; he is expected to
acquire the qualifications while still mixing with his fellows and trying to
help them. Usually he has his living to get; he is constantly meeting other men,
who are sometimes pleasant and sometimes the reverse, but in any case bring with
them their own vibrations, which are different from his own, and so disturbing.
He has his anxieties, he 'has inevitably many things about which he must think,
and under those conditions he cannot expect to make such rapid progress in
occult development as a man who has nothing else to do. At the same time, he can
in certain ways do more good than a hermit. He can set an example; he can show
by his life that it is possible to be in the world and yet not of the world.

4.One who desires to be accepted and taught by a Master should endeavour to
understand exactly what the Master wants, and how the matter of receiving a man
as an apprentice must envisage itself to Him. Every human being has a certain
amount of spiritual strength, just as he has s certain amount of physical
strength. Most men are ignorant of its very existence, and so let it lie dormant
or fritter it away. A Master knows exactly how much force He has, and holds it
to be His duty to use every ounce of it to the best advantage for the good of
the world. It is that consideration, and that only, which determines whether He
will or will not accept any person as an apprentice. There is no sort of
favouritism about it. He does not take a person because he is recommended, or
because he is the son of somebody who has been accepted before. Sometimes a
student thinks:

5.I know I am defective, but still I should like to be taught and helped;
why should not the Master accept and teach us all?

6.That is unreasonable, because to do that would not be a profitable
investment of the Master's force. Any older student can teach a newcomer, and to
ask the Master to do it would be like asking the Principal of a College or the
Minister of Education of a country to teach an infant class. The Master is
dealing with men en masse, in great blocks of thousands at a time, and in quite
a different way; and we have to consider what is best for all, not for ourselves
alone. It would be obviously unwise for the man who is Director of Education for
a whole country to devote his time to teaching one little child, or even twenty
or thirty. If the Master sees a promising person, we may imagine Him making a
calculation in His mind. We may with all reverence suppose that He would say to
Himself:

7.If I accept that man, I shall have to spend so many hours over him;
during that time I could do a certain amount of the wider work for the world.
But I think that when he has been brought to a certain point he will be able to
do work which will in the long run more than counterbalance what I could do in
the time spent over him, and meantime he can be used as a channel; therefore he
is a good investment.

8.Acceptance depends solely upon the fitness of the candidate. It is by no
means only a question of what he will be able to do some day in the future, but
also of how far he can be used here and now. Take an example. In the course of
His work a Master may wish to produce some physical result  to send out an
etheric current perhaps  in a certain town. He is working on the spiritual or
intuitional level; how can He most easily achieve that physical result?

9.Several methods are available. He can project His force to the required
spot at the spiritual level, and then drive it down by main force through the
intervening planes; but that will waste a great deal of energy in the process of
distribution. He can call to some pupil at a distance, give him the force on the
higher plane, and tell him to go astrally to the spot where it is needed, and
then transfer it to the physical level. That would take less of the Master's
energy, but would expend more than is necessary of the pupil's. But suppose the
Master had in that town a good student who had brought himself into harmony with
the great work. He would utilise that man; He would pour the energy into him at
the higher level, and use him as a channel for it, leaving to him the
transmutation into physical-plane energy and the actual radiation of it in this
lower world. The student as an ego would be conscious of the honour done to him,
and would eagerly co-operate; but the personality in its physical brain might
not know what was being done, though it would be sure to feel much uplifted and
unexpectedly happy. When that feeling comes to the student, he may take it for
granted that some blessing is being shed through him; when he wakes in the
morning with a sensation of bliss and great content, he may know thereby that
some good thing has been done through him.

10.It will be readily understood that a man who can often be used in that
way is one whom the Master notices and is likely to draw nearer to Himself.
Unfortunately men often allow themselves to get into a condition which makes
them useless to the Master; then when He wants a channel in their neighbourhood,
He looks at them and sees that they are not available, and so He chooses someone
else to bear that blessing. It may be worth while to consider some of the
reasons that make a student temporarily useless to the Master, and to try to
understand why certain actions produce that particular result, so that we may
avoid them.

11.First let us grasp the relation of our vehicles to one another. We speak
and think of them as separate bodies, each functioning in a different world, and
we are apt to forget how entirely they are also one. All matter is fundamentally
the same matter; just as all kinds of substances in the physical world are all
built of absolutely identical physical atoms, and the only thing that differs is
the arrangement of those atoms, so all kinds of matter on the different planes
from the highest to the lowest are built of identical bubbles, and the only
thing which is different is the arrangement of those bubbles. So there is a very
real sense in which it may be said that all our bodies are really one complex
body, the different parts of which are closely interrelated.

12.We may take an analogy from our physical vehicle. As we see it, it is a
form of flesh, and has the appearance of being built only of solid matter; but
we know quite well that it is thoroughly interpenetrated with liquid, so that
the slightest prick in any part of it at once produces a drop of blood. The
blood interpenetrates the body so thoroughly that if it were possible (which it
is not) to remove all the solid matter and yet maintain the liquid in the same
position, we should have a perfect outline of the body built up in blood alone.
In the same way the body is interpenetrated by air and other gases; and we could
conceive, if it were possible in some way instantaneously to freeze those gases,
that we might have a perfect outline indicated by them. But all these different
kinds of rnatter make one body, and it would be impossible to affect one of the
kinds of matter which compose it without equally affecting the others also. All
the vehicles of which we speak as the causal, mental, astral and physical bodies
interpenetrate one another; so that it is impossible to affect one without
thereby influencing all the rest.

13.If therefore a man desires to offer himself as a channel for the force of
the Master, he must have all these vehicles simultaneously in a calm and
responsive condition; and anything which disturbs such a condition in any one of
them will be an obstacle in the way of the Master's work.

14.One of the commonest of these obstacles is worry. A man who allows
himself to feel worried or anxious has his mental body in a condition of unrest
which, to clairvoyant vision, gives it the appearance of the ocean when tossed
by a tempest. Before a Master could use such a vehicle as a channel for His
force, He would have to exert whatever amount of energy was needed to calm that
troubled ocean and hold it absolutely still; and that would be far more trouble
for Him than to manipulate the force Himself; so He will certainly choose some
other way.

15.Another very common obstacle is selfishness. In a man whose thoughts are
centred upon himself, all the forces are moving inward instead of outward.
Before such a man could be of any use to the Master, it would be necessary that
all those currents should be checked and reversed, that their life-long habit of
inward flow should be eradicated, and a new habit of exactly opposite nature
should be established. It is at once obvious that to attempt to utilise such a
man cannot be a profitable speculation. What the Master wants is a person in
whom all the forces are flowing outwards towards others. Then there is already a
radiation going on, and when He throws His force in, it is easy for Him to
strengthen that radiation. Another point is that, unless the man is absolutely
primitive and unevolved, along with the selfishness there is always disturbance.
The ego knows something about evolution and the laws which govern it, and
therefore his will is always favourable to progress, and so far as he is yet
able to guide the personality he guides it in the direction of evolution. When
the personality takes the bit between its teeth and runs away, it is always
against his will; but the reins by which he holds it are not yet as strong as
they will be, and so if he pulls too hard he knows that they will break, which
often makes the position very difficult for him. He must make the personality
strong in order that effective progress may be possible for it; and yet when it
is strong it often uses its strength in directions which he does not approve.
Thus wherever there is selfishness there is always at the heart of things a
struggle, and that also makes it impossible for the Master to use a self-centred
man.

16.Pride and conceit are forms of selfishness, and they also set the
currents running inward instead of outward. A man who is conceited is never upon
the watch for opportunities of usefulness, and so he often misses them. He is
intent upon going his own way, and he is therefore not open to the influence
from the Master which would set him moving in the opposite direction of
helpfulness and service.

17.Irritability is another bar with which we frequently meet. Just as the
mental body of the worried man is in a state of perpetual disturbance, so is the
astral body of the irritable man. A healthy astral body should normally exhibit
some four or five distinct rates of vibration corresponding to the nobler
emotions, and it should show only those vortices which correspond to the
principal centres in the physical vehicle; but the irritable man often shows
fifty, sixty or a hundred small vortices, each like an open sore in the centre
of a little tract containing an assortment of all kinds of unpleasant and
undesirable colours. Through every one of these the man's force is escaping, and
so he wearies himself and wastes strength unnecessarily, scattering round him
unhealthy disturbing influences.

18.A man of this kind has no strength left to be employed in the Master's
service; and even if a Master should exert the force necessary to reduce his
chaos to order, any streams of energy which were sent out through him would be
tainted by his ill-temper. I know well that for us, who are living in a century
of savage hurry, it is difficult to avoid irritability; the haste and pressure
of modern life cause great nervous suffering, which is apt to show itself in
this very vice of chronic ill-temper. Just because people are overstrained they
are often sensitive to things which in reality do not matter in the least, and
should not be allowed to cause disturbance. Under such an influence a man allows
himself to be troubled by what another says of him, or by some falsehood which
is written about him in a newspaper  things which should not cause even a
momentary annoyance to any man of a well-balanced and philosophical turn of
mind.

19.Again, a man who frequently yields himself to depression is quite useless
while under its influence. If we turn to the illustration of the astral body of
a depressed person in Man, Visible and Invisible, we shall find that he has
absolutely enclosed himself in a kind of cage. This cage would prevent the
radiation of beneficent influences; and even if they were strong enough to break
it, they would still carry parts of it with them, and would be polluted by it.
Also, to break up such a cage in that violent manner would break up the astral
body itself and cause serious harm. The same thing is true of avarice, though
the coloration of the cage is different.

20.Another difficulty which sometimes stands in the way is ambition. I do
not say that ambition is a bad thing in the worldly life, so long as its objects
are not unworthy. If a man be a doctor or a lawyer, it is well that he should
have the ambition to be a clever doctor or lawyer, in order that he may be able
to do as much good as possible for his fellow-creatures in the profession which
he has chosen for himself. But if the man's mind is so filled with ambition that
there is no room for any other thought, that would be a bar against his being
used for the transmission of higher forces. One cannot think of it as a sin; but
the fact remains that it implies the continued presence in the various vehicles
of a certain vibration which will be out of harmony with any that the Master is
likely to wish to send through.

21.Sensuality also is an absolute bar. It may be associated with actual
wicked thought, or it may simply be a survival from the animal kingdom through
which we have passed; in either case it creates a chronic disturbance and sets
up a type of undulations which would be entirely inharmonious with any higher
forces.

22.Those who desire to be ready for the Master's call must cast off these
fetters; they must clear these difficulties out of the way. Though it is simple
enough to understand what is required, it is not easy to do it. The mere study
of Theosophy presents no serious difficulties; with a little assiduity one may
obtain a mass of information about planes and sub-planes, about rings and rounds
and planetary chains; but that is not enough. What is required is an attitude
towards life  an attitude of benevolent philosophic calm. I had an old nurse
who, when anything went wrong, used to say:

23.Don't mind; it will be all the same a hundred years hence.

24.And really, you know, if one thinks of it, that is true. If some sorrow
or sickness comes, it is very hard for the moment, but think how you will look
back upon it from the heaven-life. Someone says something nasty about you; a
hundred years hence it will not matter what he said. Except to himself it does
not rnatter even now; why should you worry yourself about it? It is the custom
to grow angry if someone speaks ill of one; but it is a bad custom. It is the
fashion to let the astral body be disturbed under such circumstances, but it is
a silly fashion; why should we follow it? If a man has been so wicked as to
speak unkindly and untruly, it is he who will suffer for the wrong he has done;
why should we unnecessarily allow our astral bodies to cause us suffering also?

25.What we do to others  that matters much to us, because it involves our
responsibility; but as to what others do to us, what happens to us in the way of
fortune or misfortune from without, we may say quite coolly in the words of the
Californian philosopher:

26.Nothing matters much; most things don't matter at all.

27.We must become indifferent to praise and blame, yet keenly alert for any
opportunity of being useful. We must regard everything from the platform of
universal brotherhood, trying always to see the good in everybody and
everything, because to look for and to emphasise the good is a sure way of
intensifying its action and evoking more good.

28.The man who adopts that attitude will make progress, for he will have
plenty of force to spare for good work. The ordinary man of the world wastes
nearly all his force in personal feelings  in taking offence, in annoyance, in
envy, in jealousy; and so he has little left for unselfish purposes. It is the
man who forgets himself who will be remembered by the Master. When the Master
sees that he has worked steadily and selflessly for some years, and seems likely
to be steadfast, He may examine him with regard to his fitness for
apprenticeship. A Master takes a fully-accepted pupil into such close
relationship with Himself that the standard of fitness must necessarily be high;
and that is why the probationary stage is often a long one. Before the Master
can take a man as part of Himself, there must be in that man no thoughts and no
feelings which the Master could not tolerate within Himself  not because of His
disgust for them, but because they would interfere with the work. Sometimes a
member says: I am deeply in earnest, and anxious to serve; I have worked and
studied for years; why does not the Master accept me?

29.The only reply we can give is:

30.My dear sir, you are the man who ought to know that. What quality have
you within you which would hinder a Master in His work? Besides, the question is
never why should not a Master accept a man, but why should He? What is there in
the man which makes him worthy of so high an honour?

31.But when, as I have said, a man has worked well for some years, when it
seems reasonably certain that he will remain steadfast and loyal, it may be that
one day a Master will say to one of His pupils:

32.So-and-so is a good man; bring him to me to-night.

33.That means that the Master will accept him on probation, and will keep
him closely under His eye. The average length of that probation is seven years,
but it may be shortened or lengthened according to circumstances. It is well
that on the physical plane the candidate should be near someone who is either an
Initiate or an accepted pupil, for in that way he may learn much. Through such
an one he may receive occasionally a rare encouraging word from the Master; the
attitude and daily life of the older pupil may give him many a hint as to what
his own should be. It is not often the doing of any one brilliant action that
brings a man to the feet of the Master; the message comes usually to one who is
working away and not thinking of it.

34.There are many different Masters, and some candidates find themselves
drawn to one of these Great Ones, and some to another. It does not matter; all
are members of the same Great Brotherhood and all are engaged in the same
glorious work. Sometimes the strongest attraction of the candidate is to one of
the more advanced pupils instead of to a Master  because the pupil, whom he has
seen and knows, is more real to him than a Master whom he has not consciously
met. That usually means that when that more advanced pupil becomes an Adept in
some future life, the candidate will wish to be his pupil. But if such a
candidate is fit for acceptance before his chosen teacher has taken the
Initiation which enables him to accept him, that teacher's Master will accept
the candidate provisionally, and look after him until such time as the pupil is
able to take him in hand. Meantime the Master will work upon him principally
through the pupil whom he loves; and thus his teaching will come along the line
of his strongest affection.

35.The Theosophical Society is drawing towards the end of its thirty-eighth
year; and much fruit of its long labour is even already showing. The results of
its work in the outer world are patent to all, but it has not been without
certain inner results which are not so generally known. Through it a number of
students have drawn near to the Great Brotherhood to which it owes its
inception, and have proved for themselves the truth of the teaching which it has
given to them. Of our great Founder, Madame Blavatsky, who endured so much of
toil and suffering that she might bring the Light to us, it may be said that she
has seen of the travail of her soul, and has been satisfied. Yet it seems to us
that her crown should shine yet more gloriously  that even more of those who
owe their progress to her should be treading the Path which she trod. The Gate
stands open as of old; who will they be who shall qualify themselves to enter?